In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence

By

Gary Fields and

Cameron McWhirter

Updated Dec. 8, 2012 12:12 a.m. ET

BALTIMORE—The number of U.S. homicides has been falling for two decades, but America has become no less violent.

Crime experts who attribute the drop in killings to better policing or an aging population fail to square the image of a more tranquil nation with this statistic: The reported number of people treated for gunshot attacks from 2001 to 2011 has grown by nearly half.